Karie E. Stewart is a full-scope midwife practicing on the south side of Chicago with the UIH Miles Square Auburn-Gresham clinic and the former Director of Midwifery Services at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She is the President of the American College of Nurse-Midwifery Illinois Affiliate Board and the Founder of Melanated Midwives, a nonprofit organization that addresses Black Maternal health disparities and Maternal Health Deserts through the creation and implementation of evidence-based research while also providing family planning, prenatal, postpartum, and mental health education sessions within the community. Currently she is the co-Principal Investigator on a PCORI funded project to examine Black Midwives for Black Women: Maternity Care to Improve Trust and Attenuate Structural Racism over the next 5 years. Her goal within this project is to highlight the importance of the collective use of racial concordant midwifery care, group prenatal care, nurse care coordination, and doula home visit during the postpartum period to address the Black Maternal Health Crisis.
Crystal Patil is Professor of Nursing at UIC and a medical anthropologist with 20 years of qualitative and mixed-methods analytical expertise related to health systems innovations and implementation science including group prenatal care.
Kylea Liese is an Assistant Professor of Nursing at UIC. She is a medical anthropologist and practicing nurse midwife who brings 13 years research experience in maternal health disparities and 10 years of midwifery practice to leading this project. She is an expert in maternal mortality and maternal health care disparities research.
Stacie Geller is the G. William Arends tenured Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the College of Medicine and the Director of the Center for Research on Women and Gender and the National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at UIC. Her scientific expertise is in applied clinical, health services, and epidemiological research focusing on maternal mortality and morbidity.